This project centers on demonstrating the health and cost effectiveness of a hypertension control and education effort designed from a community-based perspective in a rural area in central Mississippi. The program involves: 1) the use of a local community organization as the grantee and focus of activities - Central Mississippi, Incorporated, 2) the involvement of local medical providers - Sidney A. Johnson, M.D., 3) the on-site scientific management of the Principal Investigator - Dennis A. Frate, Ph.D., 4) the use of local residents as the managers and educators, 5) the development of intervention strategies based on the social fabric of this area -extended family health counselors, 6) the use of computer based resources for training and education, 7) and the coordination of a scientific consortium skilled in health program design, clinical management, program evaluation and epidemiology. This program will center on not merely the detection of hypertensives but on the management and education and the subsequent reduction in risk factors. A wide range of evaluation efforts are planned on the closely randomized population and intervention groups to measure the overall health and cost effectiveness of this program. In addition to the control efforts, a carefully designed epidemiological investigation will be conducted into the genetic-environmental relationships in hypertension.